


Today Is Saint Valentine's Day

by executrix



Category: Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 08:52:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5450696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A treat for fiftysevenacademics, who wanted to know how Benedick broke Beatrice's heart and started the merry--or perhaps not so merry-war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Today Is Saint Valentine's Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fiftysevenacademics (rapiddescent)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rapiddescent/gifts).



ACT ONE _Before the house of Leonato_

Signior Benedick was a gentleman, but of no great property or name. He was a third son of a minor noble. The soldier’s life suited him well—better than the cloister where his younger brother and two of his sisters were consigned. His friendships were heartfelt, but brief. As long as they were not left behind with a stone overhead, he faced with equanimity the departure of friends who moved to a new camp or a new campaign. He sustained these losses better than the obligation to be much in the company of one he had once considered a fine duelist, a reckless fighter, a splendid musician or amusing conversationalist, but now had tired of.

No one would dare call him fickle, for there was nothing wrong with his sword or his manage of it. Nor did he think himself fickle. That was a word for a woman, not for a man who was no lack-beard, but young enough for the sable to be unsilvered. 

Benedick knew that at some point, if he survived (and dying was usually the province of the foot soldiers) he must settle down. His quandary was that he would need an heiress to repair his fortunes. But, unless the girl’s father was a great admirer of soldiery, he had little to offer. 

As some little war or other wound on, it was not unusual for Don Pedro’s army to pass through Messina. Governor Leonato, always feasted them and gave them accommodation for as long as the horses needed to rest and the surgeons needed to bind up fractures and saw off limbs. Don Pedro himself was given the best chamber. His entourage was consigned to a honeycomb of rooms in an outbuilding. 

In his first sojourn in Messina, Benedick often found himself in the company of Don John. At first Benedick, born in a lawful bed, drew himself somewhat apart from the bastard. Then, priding himself on being a learned and a modern man, he thought they had some common cause. The worst crimes, and the worst sins in the calendar, that a man might piously refrain from or choose to do, were punished less stringently than the offense of being younger than another man, or the offense of his mother’s lightness.

For the next few weeks, Benedick was glad of Don John’s company: he was an intelligent man, and held high office in his half-brother’s army. Other men called them the prince’s jesters. But time wore on, and Benedick, although glad to be recognized in his small circle, began to wonder if the attention was flattering, and if the comparison between the two men was really just. His own jests were usually witty plays of language, or gossamer spun to make some danger or annoyance amusing in retrospect. He could caricature a man’s foibles to perfection, but he did so affectionately, and the man himself would laugh and clap Benedick’s shoulder. 

Don John’s bitter jests, uttered behind the back of a man who was not present to issue a challenge, were arias on the theme of which man was a coward, who a eunuch, who a cuckold, who a sodomite.   
“What think you of Don Pedro?” Don John asked. “The prince that is half my brother, is he a man of twice my parts?”

Benedick said nothing.

“I see you will not be drawn.” _I will not,_ Benedick thought, _nor hanged and quartered in the bargain for uttering treason._

“It is an honor to march beneath his banner,” Benedick said. “He is brave, and noble, and magnanimous, as becomes a ruler. Is that not what you wished to hear?”

ACT TWO _Within Leonato’s estate_

In search of better company, Benedick wandered around Leonato’s estate. In the dairy, he found a young woman who, he thought, was a poor relation of the house. Benedick did not think her face to memorable (but for her sparkling black eyes), but her gown, though worn and often made-over, revealed the upper slopes of a promising white bosom.

Beatrice recognized him. He was not as handsome as the bastard Don John, or the tall, blue-eyed Milanese Captain Ottavio, but his table talk was witty. Once all of the whey had been soured and curded, and the cheeses set into their molds, they went for a walk.

Benedick mentioned that he had a trunk full of books that he carried with him on campaign. He had recently purchased three more books and the trunk would no longer close. He offered to give her some of the surplus. 

The only book Beatrice had of her own was a duodecimo missal that had once belonged to Hero’s mother. Beatrice went to the kitchen to fetch some pears and a flacon of wine, and sat down on the low orchard wall. Benedick assessed his collection of books. A book of divinity—no. A book of arithmetic—no. A book of traveler’s tales—yes. He took that, and another book (beautiful and learned, but very wanton) with him.  
They munched the fruit, and drank the wine, then conned over the book of marvels. Benedick was able, from his store of knowledge, to tell her about the countries he had passed through, and the dangers that he passed. “I once went three leagues, for the funeral of one of my uncle’s relatives,” Beatrice said mournfully. He cautioned her about which of the tales he knew to be false, from his own observation. 

He could see himself in her eyes, through her eyes. She did not see a fool with a shrunken purse, but a learned man, grown a polished courtier by his travels, a brave man skilled in men’s work. 

She could see his admiration, not merely of that which lay beneath her oft-mended gown, but that which lay beneath the braids of her black hair. When she asked him questions about his adventures, he saw the generous fullness and the redness of her lips. 

Beatrice knew no more Latin than the responses of the Mass, so Benedick was able to demonstrate his facility in translating from their own Italian tongue to tell her the marvelous stories in the book of changes.

She moved closer to him. “Take your hand to the buttery-bar, and let it drink.”

They read no more that day.

ACT THREE  
III.i _The hall of Leonato’s house_

“You and the Ancient Pierluigi were not at the tavern,” Don John said. “What a pity you were not there! We had much sport. The Ancient, they say, is much in the company of the maidservant Ursula. A soldier, effeminated! What meat for many jests!”

“Indeed?” Benedick said. “I was much cumbered with business. And now I must leave your blithe and pleasant company, for I must to the salle des armes. Soon we will be on campaign, and I must not let my strong sword-arm weaken.”

III.ii _The chapel_

Father Lucca’s fist crashed down on the arm of his chair in the confessional. This was the sort of confession he expected (and received) from Margaret and Ursula, not from a lady of the house. If the jackanapes who cozened her were to appear, Father Lucca would give him the rough side of his tongue. But he knew that soldiers’ confessions were usually prudentially delayed until the eve of battle, when the army chaplain would be lenient.

ACT FOUR _A tavern_

“She is a most exquisite lady,” Benedick said.   
“Faugh! The wine she drinks is made of grapes. Welladay, if to be low and brown is to be beautiful, so she is,” Don John said. “And a lady not yet old enough to be a staled maid, nor cursed enough to be a virago, although to that she will come.”

Blood bolted to Benedick’s cheeks. “I will to Signior Leonato tomorrow, and ask for her hand.”

“’Tis well she is honest,” said Don John, who had observed that Benedick’s pallet sometimes went un-slept upon. “A girl who brings no fortune has only one treasure in her casket to bring to the altar. For what man would wed a callet?”

“Were I practicing my rhetoric, I could say that an honest girl may fall, when a man frantic with love importunes her. And were it so, then it were best that the priest confess them and then join their hands.” 

Don John shook his head. “The man who argued so would lose the disputation. A soldier’s wife must be as Caesar’s wife. Even a reputation for lightness would be enough to turn his sweet slumbers to Procrustes’ bed, when he must oft lie far from home. He goes to fight, and when his life is in peril he must wonder if she spends her nights in prayer, or if she has made his house a nunnery.”

“If the frankness of love, and the solicitations of the blood, go beyond the bounds of Holy Church, and the man and the maid lie together, then it lies with him to repair the breach he has made.”

“A man who is deceived at the altar, by one who proclaims herself virtuous, or whose family makes up the match to save their honor, is but a pathetic fool, for he believes that she whom he weds is pure. But who knows better than the seducer the value of what he has destroyed, or the robber who has plundered the casket?”

ACT FIVE  
V.i _The house of Leonato_

The army was about to depart. Leonato sat in his muniment-room, unrolling and unrolling parchments. Beatrice made herself useful enough, but he would be glad to get her off his hands. After awhile, when it was clear that Benedick was not coming, he took up a pen and began to cast the accounts. He sighed. Soon, he must start the whole laborious business on Hero’s behalf, which would be complicated by the machinations needed to preserve his great estate once a suitable bridegroom had been located. 

“You men will never tarry,” Beatrice said. “I know your time here must be but short, but we shall be unobserved long enough for a brief farewell.” She moved toward him, opening her arms to embrace him. 

“I have much business to perform,” Benedick said, turning away. He put his foot into the stirrup and mounted his horse (a roan that resembled not a throne but a joint-stool), although too hurriedly to witch anyone with noble horsemanship. 

“Strangers and foes do sunder, and not kiss,” Beatrice said. 

“I have no superfluous leisure. I am sent for,” Benedick said. He spurred his horse and did not look back, glad that he had escaped the fate of a forehorse to a smock.

He hadn’t remembered to leave the books, after all. 

V.ii _Hero’s chamber_

Hero finished the stint of mending the linen assigned to her for the day. Curious where Beatrice could be, she wandered around the house and grounds. She discovered Beatrice lying in their bed, sucking on a ginger confit filched from the kitchen, a stone bottle of hot water wrapped in rags on her belly. She looked blithe and bonny. 

Hero was just fifteen, too young for her flowers. But she had heard that it was a time when women suffered pains that, like an over-parted actor who had conned but half his lines, rehearsed the groans that would come. “You are a strange girl.”

“When thou’rt older and hast more sense, wilt understand, Hero.” Although she had not succeeded in losing her virginity to her own liking, nevertheless she had not been blown up, and she was determined to sigh no more.

Beatrice combed out another hank of Hero’s hair, and braided it with ribbon. 

“And what think you of Don Gennaro, that merchant who came to dinner last week?”

“Oh, his belly is as round as a pumpkin, and his pate is as shiny as your best silver mirror. He is tonsured like a friar, so I was ill at ease to see him in a gown of branched velvet and not of rough friar’s frieze. I had rather he shrive me than wive me. At least he is Sienese, and not infected with the vices of the sottish Germans, the foolish English, and the savage Scots.”

Hero laughed. “Unless you speak fairer of men, you will never get a husband—even from those nations you traduce.”

“Never mind, I wish for none,” Beatrice said. “Wives are laden with cares, spinsters are merry.” She patted her cousin’s shoulder, then leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “But you need not fear, you are so pretty and sweet and modest” (and, Beatrice thought, the sails of your caravel are bellied with the dowry your father will give you) “that soon you will be helped to a good husband.”

Three years later, Don Pedro’s army returned to Messina. 

_Young men will do’t, an they come to’t; by cock, they are to blame_


End file.
